Where are most millionaires educated?

October 23, 2016

Categories:

More of the world’s millionaires were educated at universities in the United States than any other country, and the major that produces the most seven-figure incomes is engineering, according to a new study by WealthInsight consultants and the U.K.’s Spear’s magazine.

Harvard University and Harvard Business School have produced more millionaires than any other universities, followed closely by Stanford, University of California and Columbia, the study found. Oxford and Cambridge in the U.K. were the only non-American universities to make the top 10.

Students studying engineering most often went on to riches, followed by those earning an MBA. Economics and law produced the next highest number of millionaires, although many future top earners left their fields of study to go the entrepreneurial route.

“You would expect to see a high number of scientific or financial degrees in the top 10, like engineering, commerce and accounting. Numerical degrees are a notable advantage when it comes to amassing a personal fortune,” said Oliver Williams of WealthInsight. “But, interestingly, few of these degrees turn out to be outright vocational. Most engineering graduates, for example, are not engineers but entrepreneurs. The same goes for most law and politics graduates, who owe their fortunes not to practicing their professions but climbing the ranks of the financial services sector.”

Just 1 percent of the world’s millionaires did not study at a university or dropped out before they graduated, including some of the world’s wealthiest billionaires: Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and British magnate Richard Branson – who left school at 16.